Working Class

[Brad DeLong]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Blade Blade
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 7:44 PM
>Subject: Working Class
>
>
>How much percentage of the population is the working class,
>middle/professional class, and upper class? I would like
>statistics for both the US and other countries. Thank you.
>
>====================
>
>To be binary:
>
>The top 1-5% vis a vis everyone else. That's right even if you
>make $100k with a family of 4 with mortgage, car payments and the
>like, you're working class. So get over it.
>
>Ian

There's a big difference between the top 1% of households and the top 
5% of households.

Let me enunciate as gospel the rule-of-thumb that Bob Litan and I 
agreed on: that more than 3 times your current consumption level 
strikes you as absurd and wasteful luxury. The median family income 
in America today is going to be about $54,000 this year. Taking a 
rough guess at the progressiveness of the tax code, you would need an 
income of about $220,000 to get you to the point where, from the 
perspective of the median, you are starting to buy stupid and 
pointless luxuries that nobody really needs... That gets you down to 
2% of families in the upper class.

Brad DeLong